Few people knew that Robert ran the Advocate as a one-person, one-cat operation out of a spare bedroom. Journalism was his labour of love. Robert’s death is a terrible loss for Simon, his son, Bonnie, his girlfriend, and all his entire family. It is also a great loss for the communities, writers, and colleagues he tirelessly supported for so long.

This marks the end of the Advocate, but we trust that it is not the end of this form of journalism. Robert showed that journalism can be accessible to anyone, regardless of training or budget. We look forward to seeing what comes next.

The work that the Nova Scotia Advocate has published is too important to lose, so the site will remain accessible as an archive. However, there will be no new articles published. Comments on old articles have been disabled.

If you were a donor using Stripe, your donations have been automatically cancelled. If you use PayPal, you need to cancel your donations manually.

There are plans for a memorial in Robert’s honour, and a way to make donations to causes he believed in. We’ll provide more information soon.

The post Robert Devet, Rest in Power appeared first on Nova Scotia Advocate.

KJIPUKTUK (Halifax) – Tired of harassment by Department of Fisheries (FDO) officers and tired of both the federal and provincial governments refusal to recognize treaty rights and court decisions, some 50 Mi’kmaw fishers and their allies rallied at the entrance to the DFO offices in Dartmouth.

In August nine Mi’kmaw fishing boats had their lines cut by vigilantes, and fishers have been subjected to DFO hauling their traps and an increased surveyance by police and DFO officers altogether, clearly aiming to intimidate them. Chief Mike Sack of Sipekne’katik First Nation has been arrested, and DFO even handcuffed a 14-year old boy after it boarded a Mi’kmaw vessel. 

Matthew Cope is a fisher from Millbrook First Nation. He faces changes for fishing out of season and selling the catch. He’s confident that when all is said and done treaty rights will win the day.

“It’s insulting that I even have to stand in front of a judge.We’re being vilified and criminalized for doing something that our treaties allow us to do. We’ve been living up to our end of these treaties, but Canadian governments haven’t been living up to their end,” Cope said.

“I can’t wait for my day in the Supreme Court of Canada, there’s going to be some fireworks. And I want compensation for every single day that my traps are out of the water,” he said.

Cope is right, of course. The Mi’kmaq people have always had the right to conduct their moderate livelihood fisheries, and these rights have been recognized and protected by a variety of decisions by the Supreme Court.

In these decisions the onus is put on the federal government to prove that regulation is justified for reasons having to do with conservation. The feds have never even tried to make that case, likely because the Mi’kmaq are doing a fine job regulating themselves, and anyways, their harvest is minuscule compared to what commercial fishers pull in. A concern that soft shell lobsters are being taken has also been found to be unwarranted.

Melanie Peter-Paul, from Sipekne’katik First Nation, elaborated on the significance of treaties to the Mi’kmaq people.   

“A recently reelected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says there’s no relationship more important to Canada than the relationship with the indigenous peoples. Yet, the Mikmaq in Nova Scotia are once again, fighting for our right to fish. Last Friday, September 17, it was 22 years since the Marshal decision, 22 years since the Supreme Court affirmed the Mi’kmaw treaty right to fish. Yet this government agency, the DFO, stifles any progress in reconciliation with this province, as they continue to defy treaties, which are the very foundation of this country,”said Peter-Paul. 

“The 1752 Treaty states that we have a right not to be hindered from and have free liberty to hunt and fish as usual, and to sell the skins, feathers, fowl or fish or any other goods. This tells me that the current fish buyers licencing and enforcement regulations are in direct violation of the 1752 Treaty and the Constitution, section 35. Mi’kmaw fishers should be free to legally sell their lobster or any other goods without harassment from the DFO or vigilante fishermen,” she said.

Noah Johnson, a lobster fisher from Potlotek First Nation, offered a glimpse of what DFO prosecution at sea looks like.

“DFO and the Coast Guard are working hand in hand. They’re out there 24 hours a day, blocking our boats from being able to retrieve our gear. They work as one boarding our boats aggressively. We’re not safe from the governments of Canada and Nova Scotia, who criminalize our treaties. They make it impossible for us to hunt, to fish, or to harvest,” Johnson said.

See also: Time once again to support the Mi’kmaw fishers

The post Stop violating Mi’kmaw treaty rights, rally tells DFO appeared first on Nova Scotia Advocate.

KJIPUKTUK (Halifax) – Ross Gray encountered racism once too often, and he is fully committed to seeing that there are consequences for the perpetrators. He hopes others will follow his example. 

In mid-July we reported how a condescending commissionaire falsely accused Gray, who is Black, of riding a bicycle on the pedestrian lane of the Angus L MacDonald Bridge. Gray was spoken down to and bluntly told that he was lying when he explained he walked all the way across the bridge, bicycle in hand. The commissionaire even falsely claimed they had footage of Gray cycling on tape.

Later Halifax Harbour Bridges (HHB) acknowledged that the accusation had no basis in fact, and apologized. HHB also said it would implement a policy to address a future repeat, and suggested that the commissionaire would receive counselling. HHB did not acknowledge the potential tole of racism in the incident.

“Too much of this is going on, and nobody ever does anything. They all just talk. Until the next time that it happens, and then it happens again. It just keeps going,” Gray said at the time. “This apology is worthless, as far as I’m concerned, because nobody is held accountable, ever.”

The ordeal shook Gray to the core, and left him determined to seek justice.

“What happened to me is a systemic thing. I’m a 57 year old man, and my accuser is probably in her thirties, but she was talking to me as if I was a child, I felt like a damn dog. You don’t talk to a human being like that,” Gray explains.

It’s also left him deeply shaken, so much so that it is affecting his ability to sleep. And he’s not the only one who is affected, inevitably it also touches those close to Gray.

“I can see the change in my son’s face when I’m talking to him about it. I have always taught him to treat people with respect. And now I find myself trying to build a wall around him, and he senses that,” Gray says.

Commissionaires employed by HHB as traffic officers receive limited policing powers. What if someday in the future they will be allowed to carry firearms, Gray wonders. “You’re going to see not just police shooting Black people, you’re going to see other authorities doing the same damn thing,” Gray says.

I ask Gray what he would say to white people who want to shrug off what happened to him as just a run in with a grouchy commissionaire, without the racist overtones. 

“I encounter racism all the time, I see it when I enter a grocery store,” Gray says, “just like a white person might feel uncomfortable when walking into an all-Black club. Except that the Black person may get shot, because there is a power imbalance in the mix. Just look at what happened to the young Black mother accused of shoplifting before she even left the Walmart store.”

See also: Protesters rally at Walmart in support of Santina Rao 

Meanwhile, any efforts by Gray to seek accountability have been unsuccessful.   

Questions emailed by Gray to HHB, about the process to lodge a racial profiling complaint, how many such complaints have been filed before, whether there is diversity training for staff, have not yet received a response. 

When the Nova Scotia Advocate asked similar questions earlier on we were told that “We believe this to be a matter between Mr. Gray and HHB.” 

“Things need to change in this province. I’d be happy if only one person who reads this story decides to speak up. Others will see that, and it will snowball,” Gray says. 

“The long and short of it is, if you’re a racist then you should be fired, And anyone who is condoning that atmosphere should be fired as well,” Gray says. “That would cut out all this bullshit talk about sensitivity training, counselling, and all these other stupid phrases that they use to cover up what’s actually going on.”

See also: Woman alleges racial profiling at Halifax store

The post “If you’re a racist then you should be fired” – Quest for accountability at Halifax Harbour Bridges continues appeared first on Nova Scotia Advocate.

KJIPUKTUK (Halifax) – By way of introduction:  I was a professor at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax for 17 years. I taught in the Management Dept. of the Sobey School of Business. I have firsthand experience with the misogynist culture in the university. I’ve written this post because the rape culture, exposed at Western University last week, exists in Canadian universities. I’m looking at it in the context of Saint Mary’s University.

Y is for your sister

O is for oh so tight

U is for underage

N is for no consent

G is for grab that ass

SMU boys we like them young

This freshman chant went viral the first week of September 2013, when leaders of Frosh student week coached first year students at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax with these catchy words. Not special to Saint Mary’s University (SMU) students, this little jingle was meant to boost student spirit—despite its focus on degrading women and promoting nonconsensual sex. Four hundred 18-19 year old students (women too) sang this rape chant in the university’s gymnasium.

That same year, members of the SMU football team (the Huskies) were caught tweeting hate, racism and sexism online. Despite being “outed”, some players continued to tweet messages including this one: “That bitch bit me last night. Hope your[sic] dead in a ditch, you are scum.” As well as “Cut your face off and wear it while I’m fucking your mother” and “Bitch, get on your knees.” What about this retweet from another twitter account?  “School is like a boner, it’s long and hard unless you’re Asian”? Media reports at the time said that the university reacted by suspending between six and ten players from the Huskies team – but not from the university.

That was 8 years ago.

Just this week the media carried reports that more than 30 female students at Western University in  London, Ont. were sexually assaulted or raped in the first week of school. The student council leaders, and Western’s president don’t deny it.

It’s probably more than 30 women students now  — two weeks into the term. And we know this happens on every campus in Canada.

Farrah Khan, manager of the Office of Sexual Violence Support and Education at XX University (formerly Ryerson University in Toronto), warned that 71% of students experienced or witnessed unwanted sexualized behaviour in 2019.  Indeed, the Statistics Canada Survey on Individual Safety in Post secondary Student Population (2020) reveals a whole minefield of facts including these:

• 11% of post-secondary school women experienced at least one sexual assault during their previous year on campus
• 19% of women who were sexually assaulted said the non-consensual assault happened after they had first agreed to another form of sexual activity.
• 45% of students who identify as women, and 32% of those who identify as men experience at least one unwanted sexual behaviour in the context of their time at university or college
• 80% of women who experienced unwanted sexual behaviour said the perpetrator was a fellow student
• Only about 8% of women and 6% of men who experienced unwanted sexual behaviour ever reported it to a professor, or the university administration, or to security.

We also know that misogyny, racism, bullying and more are bound up in the culture of most universities. But why is that?

In the chapter I wrote “Rape Chant at Sant Mary’s University” in the 2017 book Sexual Violence at Canadian Universities, I state there are three phenomena that converged at Saint Mary’s to open the door to sexim and misogyny:

1. The business school culture

For the last 30 years business schools are “vanguard” faculties in many universities. By “vanguard” I mean the universities “crown” business schools as the biggest and/or the leading faculties.  This coincides with the unbridled growth of neo-liberalism and the rise of the “market” and consumerism which govern most people’s lives.

Business schools teach students how to make profits and prop up the capitalist system. Lately some business schools specialize in promoting the “entrepreneurial” culture in which there is little to no emphasis on the common good, group solutions or questioning authority.  Renowned McGill business studies professor Henry Mintzberg calls business school trained MBAs “a menace to society.” Business school education contributes to a competitive and winner takes all type of thinking, or “pedagogy of the privileged.”

The role of women in the business world is played down. In 2019, 24.5% of Financial Post top 500 corporate board seats were held by women — up from 22% in 2017. A BNN-Bloomberg report found that there were only 2 women CEOS in the top 100 most influential companies within the S&P/TSX Composite Index. 

Nowhere are there any target figures or quotas to enfranchise more womene. The fact that women are still under-representd on boards and in public appointments demonstrates that business education’s message to women students is: you probably won’t make it to the top. In fact, women are second rate.  

2. The sports culture

Many universities are known for their sports teams; to be frank, sports teams are a tool used to recruit more students.  Widespread academic research suggests that male varsity teams “may be consistent with pro-sexual violence attitudes and a culture that promotes, or at least does not discourage, sexualized violence.”  Anthropologist Peggy Reeves-Sanday echoes this when she writes that key elements of sexual assault on campus (also called rape culture are  “sex segregation, tolerance for violence and male dominance.”   The established link between varsity sport and sexual violence is concerning because many universities have a dozen or more teams. 

3. The drinking culture

Drinking is a big part of most students’ culture and socializing.  Drinking is often allowed in student residence rooms and at the student bars on campuses. Evidence is that the vast majority of sexual assault cases involve alcohol. One estimate is that almost 90% of Canadian university students drink alcohol, while 43% report drinking at least once a month.  Underage drinking is common. Binge drinking by students, and mixing alcohol with highly caffeinated energy drinks can lead to more “negative alcohol related consequences”  than using alcohol alone.

Researchers note that “When combined, the use of alcohol and/or drugs not only increases the likelihood of a sexual assault occurring but also works to decrease the perpetrator’s feelings of responsibility.” 

The prevalence of date rape drugs – drugs used to spike women’s drinks in bars and at parties– means women are left totally incapacitated and out cold.  Some women find themselves in their own or an empty hotel room when they finally wake up hours later.  One emergency room doctor at the QEII hospital in Halifax estimated he sees about two women in the ER who were subject to date rape drugs every month. He calculated that meant there were likely more than 20 cases of women who did not go to emergency. With 30 ER doctors on duty, that  figure could be as high 600 cases in a month. 

Every year the public waits to find out how serious sexual assault is in Frosh week activities. This year, the first shoe dropped at Western University with the news of sexual assaults on at least 30 young women over the first few days of classes. When will the other shoe drop? When will other universities be named – as doing little to nothing though every year women students and vulnerable students get attacked most often by male students.  Universities’ chief line of defense is that they will educate, warn  the students who live in on-campus residences, hire residence monitors and offer bystander training. But bystander training has been a “thing” for nearly a decade.  Yet we have not seen an appreciable decrease in sexual violence on campuses. Why is that? One reason could be bystander training is based on techniques to “change the channel” rather than confront the issue head-on.  For example, in by-stander training, people are taught to distract the perpetrator, or remove the person at risk.  By following the 3 D’s (Direct, Distract, Delegate) to safely intervene in a potentially violent situation, the technique is meant to de-escalate the situation.  But the situation still exists. The harasser, or the perpetrator, will just find another victim, and go after her. 

It is the culture that has to change. That change means there can be no tolerance for misogyny and devaluation of women in society as a whole.

Judy Haiven is on the steering committee of Equity Watch, an organization that fights discrimination, bullying and racism in the workplace.  Contact her at equitywatchns@gmail.com

The post Judy Haiven: University blues – this fall’s first two weeks of misogyny and sexual assault on campus… appeared first on Nova Scotia Advocate.

Dear Premier Houston and Minister Masland,

I congratulate you both on the opportunity to serve all Nova Scotians.

I read Premier Houston’s mandate letter to Kim Masland, Minister of Public Works dated 14 September with concern. You write:

“As Minister of Public Works, you will:

Within the first 90 days of your mandate, prepare a timeline for completion of all tasks below over the next four years. The initial timelines are to be updated quarterly thereafter.

• Double the Gravel Road Reconstruction Program.
• Double the Rural impact Mitigation Fund.
• Honour road commitments made by the previous government in their five-year plan.
• Develop infrastructure to support the health system.
• Remove the tolls on the Cobequid Pass, starting the process immediately.
• Invest in new and expanded connections to HIAA from key strategic destinations and new destinations. Where possible, new cargo routes will also be extended with a primary focus on speed to market.
• Clearly enshrine in legislation a mandate that all new government buildings and any major renovation must be net-zero will help to decrease our GHGs over time.
• Ensure that new provincial buildings are net-zero and that all major provincial building retrofits will be low-carbon, reducing embodied carbon and ensuring 75% of domestic office floor space (new leases and lease renewals) will be in net-zero carbon climate resilient buildings starting in 2030.
• Within the first six months of your mandate, review the ownership of all non-essential assets by the province.”

There is no mention of:

• The need to meet the clear aims and requirements set out in the current Provincial Sustainable Transport Strategy.
• The Traffic Safety Act and associated Regulations, which remain a work in progress.
• Active Mobility.
• A current road safety crisis that disproportionately affects senior vulnerable road users.
• The need to urgently develop a provincial road safety strategy in conjunction with key road safety stakeholders.
• The need to reassess the decision to enable car travel and parking (instead of Park & Ride) for 90% of visitors to the Halifax Infirmary hospital site.
• The need to support a transition to sustainable and efficient mobility in urban areas that will address disproportionate and unsustainable levels of car use.
• How and why the current five year spending plan, likely requiring billions of dollars until 2026, should be reviewed due to a climate emergency, and emissions targets.

Transportation enables us to do the activities we need and want to do. Walking, biking, driving, and taking the bus help us get to work, to the market, to the doctor, and even out to the ocean to play. Transportation is essential to our quality of life, economic progress, and overall health. Over the last century, we have become increasingly dependent on one type of transportation: the automobile. The car has made our lives easier in many ways. It allows us to move quickly and travel much farther than was once possible. However, our current transportation system and patterns of land use development, which have been designed around the personal vehicle, need to change.

The above is not my words. This is introductory content from Nova Scotia’s current Sustainable Transportation Strategy, found on the NovaScotia website. 

I appreciate Nova Scotian travel is grounded in car use, even in urban areas where experts agree this is unsuitable and unsustainable. However, the Provincial sustainable transport strategy sets out comprehensive research-backed reasons why a shift in lifetime travel habits is needed, and how it can happen: By ensuring all infrastructure decisions and funding commitments are made using a sustainable transport lens.

It is difficult to understand how and why such a thoughtful and expertly written collaborative strategy has been sidelined. Perhaps established habits of investment and travel are too easy to maintain? The same old emphasis on highway twinning, parking lots, new roads and bridges remains the funding mainstay within the Liberal five year infrastructure plan, which you have chosen to honour.

The Sustainable Transport Strategy sets out an approach to infrastructure investment that a Government placing sustainability and fiscal responsibility at the centre of policy choices cannot afford to overlook. 

Investment that increases capacity for more cars will induce demand for more car use, creating a vastly more expensive and dangerous future for everyone. It requires the bulk of investment to be focused on creating and maintaining expanded road networks, preventing meaningful investment in an adequate network of public transport, bus and cycle lanes, sidewalks and frequent safe crosswalks. 

I fully anticipate a response outlining your limited commitments to cycle routes, a proposed new ferry route from Bedford, and multi-use trails used mainly for ATV’s or health and fitness. This is not adequate. Ireland has committed 70% of its transport funding to active mobility. Wales has announced a freeze on new road infrastructure investment due to the climate crisis. These are both countries with significant rural road networks, many which I am sure Nova Scotian traffic engineers would understand desperately require widening and improving. 

A commitment to the existing direction found within Nova Scotia’s sustainable transport strategy must be acknowledged as the appropriate orientation for transportation infrastructure that meets the needs of current and future Nova Scotians.

Opportunities to part-fund lasting change including Halifax’s bus rapid transit network cannot be overlooked or regarded as secondary in importance to Highway twinning or new roads. This is an investment with immense cost saving potential for generations of residents. With adaptations it can potentially also serve as a Park & Ride service for both downtown and the Halifax Infirmary hospital, thus preventing the need for car parking and road widening where there is least room and most expense involved.

With new governance, now is the right time to announce a fiscal review of the current spending commitments within the five year infrastructure plan. For the current budget year, the capital highway spend is expected to reach $500 million. By 2026, it will likely require billions of dollars. 

A review can be led through both a lens that acknowledges the relevance of the current sustainable transport strategy and by proposing a ground-breaking Provincial road safety strategy examining cost effective road safety strategies including alternatives to Highway twinning. I would welcome the opportunity to be involved, as I am sure would many residents, academics, experts, staff, stakeholders and professionals.

With best wishes

Martyn Williams

If you walk, cycle or use a wheelchair and are affected by road safety issues, please join HRM Safe Streets for Everyone. If your local crosswalk needs a crosswalk flag, please contact the Crosswalk Safety Society. Please remember to report issues affecting your safety to our municipal authorities using the 311 service.

The post Martyn Williams: Letter to Kim Masland, minister of Public Works, and Premier Tim Houston appeared first on Nova Scotia Advocate.

KJIPUKTUK (Halifax) – As we head towards a federal election, we’ll hear – as we do every 4 years or so – politicians pay lip service about access to dental care. To some of us, it may seem baffling that the bones in our mouths don’t receive the same consideration as the rest of our bones. Canadians take pride in our public health care system, so naturally we should also care about the health of our mouths.

Where we are today

Since dental care is not included in Medicare, people rely primarily on work related insurance and out of pocket payments to access care. In fact, 95% of dental spending in Canada is private and only 5% goes towards public dental programs. The share of public dental spending in Canada is even less than the US at 10% and not even close to the UK at 46%. Due to the current structure of dental care in Canada many people lack access to care.

In 2018, approximately 1 in 3 Canadians lacked any dental insurance and over 1 in 5 avoided the dentist due to financial constraints. For people who lack access to dental care, preventive and routine care is neglected in order to focus resources on dealing with pain and infection, which results in a population with poorer oral health. This has many consequences on individuals and society as a whole.

For individuals, poor oral health has been shown to cause or worsen many general health conditions including: cardiovascular disease, diabetes, having a low birth weight infant, aspiration pneumonia, erectile dysfunction, osteoporosis, metabolic syndrome and stroke. Further, having visible decay or missing front teeth can affect employability and one’s self esteem.

For society, there is increased healthcare spending for a society with poorer oral health. One reason for the increased spending on healthcare is due to the effects of poor oral health on overall health. Further, hundreds of thousands of Canadians end up in an emergency department each year seeking treatment for dental pain, a problem that is estimated to cost over $150 million per year.

Even before the pandemic, access to dental care in Canada was poor and getting worse. Due to changes in the economy, fewer people have dental insurance. Many people are retiring and losing work related dental insurance and an increasing number of people are working in the precarious ‘gig economy’ that does not provide benefits like dental insurance tied to their labour. With the financial hardship caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, even more people are struggling to access dental care.

How we can implement it

The federal NDP has proposed a plan to provide dental insurance to uninsured families making $90,000 per year or less. The plan is desperately needed and is expected to help over 6 million Canadians with a cost of only $1.5 billion per year. Don Davies, the federal NDP health critic has stated that he sees this plan as an interim measure while we work towards integrating dental care into Canada’s universal health care system.

Ultimately Canadians need to confront the fact that dentistry is big business, with corporate ownership of dental clinics rapidly growing in Canada. Fortunately, confronting the profit motive in dental care will allow serious gains in public health.

Saskatchewan had a public dental program that ran out of schools in the 1970-80’s that  showed the benefit of taking the business end out of dentistry. The program used dental therapists which are providers that can do fillings and simple extractions at a fraction of the cost of a dentist.  Due to the easy accessibility of the clinics, the focus on prevention and cost efficient use of dental therapists the program was a huge success, lowering the need for fillings and extractions in children by half. Further dentists that worked in the program could focus on more complex procedures that only they were trained for. It is important to learn from this model and allow government funding to bring clinics like this into our communities. For example, with proper funding clinics like the North End Community Health Centre could be expanded to provide dental care to the community. Currently the clinic relies on local dentists to donate their time, but this is not enough to meet population needs. 

It is clear that the status quo for dental care is inadequate. Maintaining a minority parliament this election is an opportunity to start expanding Medicare to include services like dental care. When Medicare was originally implemented, it was with the intention of including dental care at a later date. Now, over half a century later, it is time to follow through with this vision.

Kevin Payne is the 2021 federal NDP candidate for the riding of Dartmouth-Cole Harbour. Brandon Doucet is a practicing dentist.

The post Luxury bones – Why we need universal dental care, and why it needs to be public appeared first on Nova Scotia Advocate.

In the morning,
the police came;
although we were outside
rent was due

We were in tents
that’s one thing we had left
we weren’t on the sidewalks
it was a disquieting perspective yet
to have no roof left at all
to be homeless, hopeless.

The Halifax Police,
handed out fines:
$300 to pay, for illegal camping
when they weren’t for kicks
but for survival, these camps
we were refugees without fleeing our motherland
the weapons against us were rising costs
we were out of work, and rents unbound
had, with no foreboding, doubled or tripled.

We who had not
a family as a lifeboat
such good friends nearby
that we could have begged for a couch…
we who knew not where to go
were in the city parks.

In Peace and Friendship park
near where the cruise ships dock
or by the Waegwaltik
where the nice yacht clubs are
or in front of the empty old library
in the heart of downtown.

There, charities had placed shelters
plywood shacks, isolated against the cold
the friends who had been surviving there
for a couple of rough months
and, we too, got two days notice
they were from city hall, and barked “get outta here”
Where to go? God only knows!
We were there, not too joyous
but since we had no other solutions
and no one had any suggestions!
If the city didn’t like our resolution
they could at least give us another option!

If rents had stayed frozen
after hearing about housing crises for four or five years
if the empty buildings, numerous as they are
were turned into bunkhouses…
or if the infamous Shannon Park became
an affordable housing complex
instead of allowing for the city council
to fantasize about a football stadium…

The morning after two days of dread
the police came, told us to break camp
Our people, the more desperate ones
they were arrested
and the rest of us, where do we go?
To cardboard boxes on Spring Garden Road?

The city claims to have “tried to work with us”
we would like to work, but where’s the work at?
The city told us to leave, with no substitute to our misery
(not even a different misery, just as bleak)
no unemployment, no recruitment aid, no lodgings
“tried to work with us”, it’s the city’s way of saying
that it doesn’t stand by its actions.

Let Halifax admit “we don’t like to see bums”
the city could have kept the name “Cornwallis”
if it was all just to deport folk from the park
which is now called Peace and Friendship
pretty words, diplomatic language
Let Halifax admit that the city doesn’t give a damn
about solving social problems,
treating people with dignity
Let Halifax admit that the city’s actions
say “when you’re down, we’ll kick you down”.

In the morning of the 18th of August
Halifax police threw us out
of Peace and Friendship
and proceeded to emptying other parks
of all the “undesirable people”
who during a pandemic of lockdowns
lack of work, bills to pay
sunk
and got washed up
with a tent, and a backpack, on a public lawn
with no water, no showers, no heating, no washing, no toilets
and all that was taken from them
while in their ears they screamed :
“Go be homeless someplace else!”

Thibault Jacquot-Paratte started publishing poetry in 2010, has since published poetry, short stories, essays, and theatre in both English and French, in Canada, Europe and India. See his profile on the Writers Federation of Nova Scotia website.

Originally published in French in : Le courrier de la Nouvelle-Écosse, Aug. 27 2021. Poem translated from French by the author.

The post Thrown out of Peace and Friendship, a poem by Thibault Jacquot-Paratte appeared first on Nova Scotia Advocate.

KJIPUKTUK (Halifax) – Some 200 people gathered in front of Halifax City Hall this morning to demand a moratorium on the evictions of unhoused people all across urban HRM. 

It’s been a month to the day since Halifax police, using pepper spray and often with their name tags removed, evicted unhoused people living in tents and crisis shelters at several locations in Halifax and Dartmouth.

The harassment and evictions haven’t stopped since and promised hotel rooms for all have proved to be a lie. When a hotel room did materialize they were often of short duration.

It is terrifying not to know whether or not you’re actually going to have a place

Malcolm was told to leave the Comfort Inn where he was placed by the city after he was evicted from an encampment. 

“It is terrifying not to know whether or not you’re actually going to have a place,” a soft-spoken Malcolm told the crowd. “On Sunday I was told, yes, you’re good, you’re here until we can get you a place, and then on Monday. I found out we’re going to be out on Tuesday. You don’t know what’s going to happen next,” he said.

Where the government fails, the community must step in

“Where the government fails, the community must step in,” said Campbell McClintock, speaking for Halifax Mutual Aid.

“Over the past year and a half of the housing crisis during the pandemic, we’ve seen that landlords, city councillors and politicians at all levels of government are at best indifferent to the suffering of people living in poverty. At worst, all these powerful people are capable of mobilizing over $100 million per year for armed police officers to harass, target and violate our most vulnerable neighbours,” McClintock said. 

“Why is it that the rich are safe from the police and from homelessness yet commit far more serious crimes than the poor. You can’t avoid harassment from police by being a good person. You can only avoid police harassment by being rich.”

Rights are meaningless unless they are asserted

The evictions were counter to United Nations protocols about the right to housing signed off on by Canada, said Asaf Rashid, a human Rights lawyer. What that means is that forceful evictions are in fact illegal, and the municipality has an obligation to provide a supportive infrastructure for the residents of the encampments. 

The City must ensure that they’re providing adequate facilities for clean drinking water, hygiene and sanitation, waste management, cooking and fire safety and harm reduction measures,” Rashid said.

“Rights are meaningless unless they’re asserted. And that’s the importance of people fighting, fighting back, fighting for dignity, and asserting not only that they have no other place to go, but that the city must provide these resources. That’s an assertion of rights, and that is the only way to win the right to housing,” said Rashid.

When the government needs help, they turn to the nonprofits. Meanwhile they refuse to fund these nonprofits

Sara Tessier is a social justice advocate with lived experience who has been working with the Elizabeth Fry and John Howard Societies, as well as with Coverdale Courtwork.

“It’s funny how when the government needs help, they turn to the nonprofits. Meanwhile they refuse to fund these nonprofits because they claim they don’t have the data to support the need for the funding,” Tessier said.

“ We’ve had countless meetings, but where’s the support you promised? Instead what we have is a cycle of homelessness, criminalization, jail, over and over and over.”

“We the people elect these people to run our governments. What if we say no? Do your job! Start looking at the people you serve.”

You’re the big cheese, Mayor Savage!

“I’m here today, because unfortunately, we live in a racist, sexist, ableist society. I’m also here because of the brutality I witnessed on August 18. The cops were thugs. I have a message for Mayor Savage. You have failed this city. I call for anybody who is a part of those evictions to resign immediately,” said disability advocate Vicky Levack.

“I learned from Google News the other day that you’re unaware that the hotel rooms would only be for two weeks. What the hell are you doing. You’re the boss, you’re the big cheese, you’re supposed to know these things.”

The post Dignity now! Rally calls for moratorium on evictions appeared first on Nova Scotia Advocate.

KJIPUKTUK (Halifax) – Despite the climate emergency the three main federal parties aren’t clearly in favour of ending oil and gas activities in the Nova Scotia offshore by the end of 2022.

That’s the disappointing message contained in the parties’ responses to a questionnaire sent out by the Offshore Alliance, a coalition of 18 fisheries and environmental groups active in the province.

The Conservative Party didn’t respond, and neither the Liberals nor the NDP provided a clear yes when asked about their intentions if elected.   

“In government, New Democrats would work with stakeholders to develop policies that would best meet the needs and concerns of all those who share the offshore waters,” the NDP states in response. 

The Liberal and NDP parties’ commitment to end all oil and gas subsidies appears to be a bit more firm, although the two parties’ responses are still dressed in ambiguity, particularly around dates.

In contrast, both the Greens and the Communist Party respond to both questions with a clear Yes.

“It was disappointing to see these partial responses from the Liberals and the NDP, quite frankly,” says John Davis, a spokesperson for the coalition, and director of the Clean Ocean Action Committee, a fisheries organization representing 9000 vessel owners, captains, crew members and fish plant owners.  

“I don’t know what more it’s going to take. The western part of our country is in flames or in flood or in drought, take your pick. Our oceans are being stressed dramatically, oxygen levels in the Gulf of St. Lawrence are way depressed, mainly because of the amount of carbon that’s been entering our oceans from the atmosphere,” Davis says. 

“Meanwhile, 84% of Nova Scotian said we should be getting off carbon and working toward a green economy. How can our elected officials be so far behind that important public sentiment?”

A questionnaire sent to the provincial parties in August shows the same ambiguity in the response from the provincial Liberals, but the position of the provincial NDP is much more firmly in favour of ending offshore exploration than its federal counterpart. 

Climate change is the main driver behind ending subsidies and offshore oil and gas activities, but not the only one, Davis says.

Despite their claims to the contrary, the oil industry does not have any capacity to clean up an oil spill in our waters. The waters are too rough and the tides and currents are too high, says Davis. 

“In Nova Scotia we have an unbelievable resource of protein energy in our oceans. The Nova Scotia fishery provides over $2 billion in export value, provides 25,000 jobs and makes substantial contributions to the provincial GDP. To put that resource, which the world really requires, at risk in order to extract more hydrocarbons, which the world does not need, and which endangers our planet just doesn’t make sense,” Davis says.

Open letter to the new provincial government

Earlier this month the Offshore Alliance sent an open letter to Premier Tim Houston, calling for all oil and gas subsidies to be terminated by the end of 2022, and for a moratorium on all offshore activities while a full public inquiry is being held on the ecological risks and impacts of continued offshore oil and gas development .

The letter also calls for support for affected oil and gas workers.

There are actually many things we don’t know about the offshore oil and gas exploration, says Noreen Mabiza, energy coordinator with the Ecology Action Centre, explaining the call for the public enquiry.

“We want to see a cost benefit analysis, considering all the investments that are going into our offshore, and determine if that’s really worth the cost  in terms of pollution and harm to the environment. It is actually really hard to find any transparency around the numbers,” Mabiza says.

We must never forget that the benefits of the clean economy that we’re working towards should be shared by all. The people who today make a living in the fossil fuel industry need to be part of the discussion. And when we talk about benefits being shared, Indigenous and Black communities, women, immigrants, and other traditionally underrepresented groups need to be brought into the conversations and be part of the solutions, Mabiza says. 

See also: “A captured bureaucracy“ – John Davis of the Clean Ocean Action Committee on Nova Scotia’s cozy relationship with Big Oil

The post News brief: “I don’t know what more it’s going to take” – Federal parties vague on ending oil and gas activities in Nova Scotia’s offshore appeared first on Nova Scotia Advocate.

I will tell you: when I was young, I went to religious services at the synagogue, Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto for 11 years of Jewish High Holidays – the Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah), and 11 years of the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur—which began last night at sunset). I will tell you: these were family occasions. My sisters and I, dressed in tweedy skirts, pale sweaters, nylon stockings and patent leather shoes, were accompanied by my parents who only attended the synagogue on the High Holidays.  We kids saw all our friends there, since we all went to religious school on Saturday or Sunday mornings. When I asked why religious school shut down for the summer, my father told me God needed a holiday too. My parents, who did not believe in God and were skeptical about faith, believed that going to synagogue on the High Holidays fulfilled their religious and community obligations. 

On Yom Kippur began, Jews are meant to fast for 24 hours, attend services at the synagogue and atone for their wrongdoings. 

I no longer go to synagogue.  Indeed I consider myself a non-practising Jew. While I have little to do with the religious aspect of being Jewish, I have a big commitment to social justice and choose to focus on tikkun olam  — “repairing the world”. 

Today I ask the 330,000 Canadian Jews to think about “repairing the world.”  We have to start with examining our role in supporting what Israel is doing to the Palestinians.  The progressive world’s gaze is now fixated on opposing settler colonialism, and fighting racism and inequality. It is Jews’ responsibility to force Israel to end its illegal and brutal occupation of Palestinians’ lands.  However, the mainstream Canadian Jewish community insists that being Jewish means total and uncritical support for Israel. 

Uncritical support for Israel has made it possible for the Israeli Defence Forces to kill more than 10, 238 Palestinians, including 1228 children in the West Bank and Gaza since 2000.  48,488  Palestinians have been made homeless by Israeli attacks and airstrikes their homes, schools and hospitals since 1967.  Uncritical Jewish support for Israel has made it possible to make Gaza the biggest open-air prison in the world, with 2 million people in an area little bigger than Halifax Regional Municipality.  Gaza has been under siege and a blockade by Israel since 2007.

Let’s look at what Israel does to Palestinians who dare stand up against them. Nine Palestinians were killed and more than 1300 seriously injured — men, women and children in Gaza shot dead by Israeli snipers in the Great March of Return in 2018-19. The US organization, Jewish Voice for Peace, says they were killed for merely protesting their conditions. 

On Sept. 6, six Palestinian prisoners broke out of Gilboa jail in Israel.  One of them, Zakaria Al-Zubeidi, was a co-founder of The Freedom Theatre, which I visited in the Jenin Refugee Camp in the West Bank, just over 10 years ago.  The Freedom Theatre was also co-founded in 2006 by a well-known Israeli actor, Juliano Mer Khamis, son of  a Jewish mother and a Palestinian father.  The theatre founded as a community hub to   “join the Palestinian people in their struggle for liberation with poetry, music, theatre, cameras.”  Al-Zubeidi was one of dozens of youth who had participated in the theatre, and wanted to use it to channel their outrage at the Israeli occupation. 

As a teen, he was shot in the legs for throwing stones at Israeli troops in the streets of Jenin.  After four operations and left with a permanent limp, he became more involved in fighting the Occupation. Needless to say he was arrested and imprisoned many times by the Israelis.  Two weeks ago, when the six Palestinian prisoners dug their way out of the prison, the manhunt for them began.  The IDF found Al-Zubeidi hiding in a West Bank village, captured him and according to sources today – beat him severely. Though he did not die, he has serious injuries.

Tonight it’s time for us Jews to think about what we can do to repair a world which our fellow Jews in Israel have broken. It’s time.

Independent Jewish Voices Canada (IJV) is a grassroots organization grounded in Jewish tradition that opposes all forms of racism and advocates for justice and peace for all in Israel-Palestine. We oppose Israel’s perpetual war including the Jewish settler violence against the Palestinian people. I’m one of the founders of IJV-Canada, an organization which began 12 years ago and now spans Canada. To see more of what we do, check us out here. Please donate to IJV here.

Please note: We have corrected this story. Al-Zubeidi was not killed but serious beatings by Israeli authorities resulted in a broken jaw and broken ribs among other injuries.

Judy Haiven is on the steering committee of Equity Watch, an organization that fights discrimination, bullying and racism in the workplace.  Contact her at equitywatchns@gmail.com

The post Judy Haiven: Today, the Jewish Day of Atonement– a day to “repair the world” appeared first on Nova Scotia Advocate.